A Random Patient revised
by imfreakinorange
Summary: This is the patience's POV. Read if you like the medical stuff. I got a review that said i should include a House character: so chapter 4 up. Will continue with review. this last one is a little short, sorry boys and girls, busy couple of weeks
1. Chapter 1

Of course it was the first time I was ever in a hospital, why would I have been before? And it smelled oddly of butterscotch, what could that be… butterscotch.

The nurse stood in the hall, holding a clipboard and a dictionary size pile of forms. The lighting was dim, and it was almost midnight. Butterscotch, what smelled like butterscotch? Maintenance workers walked slowly down the hall, dark blue uniforms becoming black as they crossed a section of hallway without lighting. The nurse's scrubs vibrated slightly as she hummed a tune I can't make out. Up and down her small voice went, humming in the dim lighted hallway.

Pudding, it must be pudding. Butterscotch pudding, why would there be butterscotch pudding around at midnight? The nurse's scrubs vibrate and I smell pudding. The worker's footsteps disappear as he mops the off-white floor to the end of the long hall. His mop meets a door with a clang. Vibrating mint green scrubs, humming up and down. Mint green and butterscotch pudding, God I'm hungry.

I look around the small room, confining, no wonder everyone's sick, there's nowhere to breath, the air is stale and damp and dark and smells like pudding at midnight. No wonder nobody leaves. The IV stands, looming in the darkness. The overhead lights have been turned off and all that remains are the shadows that cast from the light behind my bed. I can't turn it off, I don't think I want to. There would be darkness, darkness, humming, mopping, and pudding. Who eats pudding at midnight?

The other light, right, the one in the corner. That's bright. It still holds an x-ray. Was that mine? I can't remember. Yeah, I guess it was. The IV stand is loose. I pull back and it wiggles a little. The bag sloshes back and forth with the liquid it contains. It sounds funny in the semi-darkness. Humming, oh God, I know that sound. Maybe the humming nurse was eating pudding on her break. The x-ray holds back the light from the glowing board. It's still glowing. Why didn't they turn it off?

Yankee Doodle? No, that's not it. God, that's so… I don't know what that is. The nurse backs up a little, she's putting the clipboard down. God, that thing must be heavy. The x-ray glows in the darkness. It's teasing me. I can make out the picture of my chest, my abdomen. Was that me? It must have been. The nurse is walking this way.

"First time in a hospital?"

"Do you like butterscotch pudding?" I signed.


	2. GoodPasture's

I watched the glowing light from the board across the room as the nurse leaves, cables flouting behind her. Sphygmomanometer and stethoscope falling off the cart that contains half my body fluid. Urine, venous and arterial blood, pretty sure there is some saliva there too. And I sit there, waiting.

The door slides open and I look up. House walks in and I look away, towards the windows on the opposite side of the room. He doesn't say anything, just sits down on the stool near the bed and the only sound in the room are the wheels rolling on the hard, tiled floor. There is a moment of silence when I hear latex snap and my heart skips a beat. The reaction is quite evident on the monitor behind my bed. He laughs, a deep chuckle that makes me turn.

"Relax." He said and I simply look at him, slightly horrified at the suggestion. I raise my eye brows, unwilling to say a word. He makes a motion with his hand and I lean forward, my spine curving.

Goodpasture's syndrome.

Screw lupus, this was so much better, and worse. My lungs were shredded and my kidneys failing. Oh happy day. No more pudding, no more mint green scrubs, and yet, I'm still starving. What's up with that?

Cold metal presses against my bare back and I gasp automatically eliciting the correct response that a deep breath would cause. I cough and I feel the metal being pulled back. "Try not to deafen me," House says, smiling ever so slightly, wrinkling his brow. I smiled and rolled my eyes. The O2 monitor bleeped and fell another point and I sighed, another point. I heard the wheels on the stool roll slightly and then the smell of plastic before I even realized that he had placed a mask on my face. I struggled for a moment, confused at the sudden claustrophobia. He pushed a hand against my chest and I instantly tensed and then relaxed as I felt the cold metal on my back again. A couple of moments of silence and deep breathing made me dizzy as the O2 flowed in.

"Turn on your side," House said motioning towards the opposite wall. My back hurt and I didn't want to move. A protest was close at hand, but I didn't say a word. Couldn't say a word. "Going to say something?" I just roll my eyes again and put my left hand to my lips. The American Sign Language sign for 'mute'. Yes, I was mute, not deaf, not dumb, not simple or strange, not shy, I was mute.

"Come on, come on," he says and I shift slightly, wincing at the ache in my back. Kidney failure will do that to you. I stare at the wall as I feel pressure on my back, wandering hands pushing against mush, dead and dying tissue. Like his leg: there, but gone. Alive, but out to lunch… oh god more food references. I grimace as his hands fall beneath my ribs and land in the depression otherwise known as my right kidney. A shift from behind and the pressure is gone. I heard a metallic clink that sends my external abdominal oblique into a tight mass at the sound, the front of my gown suddenly tight against my chest. The monitor next to the bed glowed as the Q-RS-T waves increased with intensity.

"Relax," the voice said from behind me, tensing against the gloved hand on my back as the litacane numbed the skin and burned my insides. I closed my eyes and watched the red glow as the overhead light blazed. After a moment, the pressure was gone, but the burning remained. I was suddenly cold, with the warmth of House's hands gone, I was suddenly empty, absent. Then, like a distant memory, the hands were back, thumbs spreading the liquid through the muscle, dissolving the burn. I opened my eyes and looked at the wall. The man behind me was quiet and so the room was quiet. A pressure and then a pinch and I winced again, but House said nothing. I stared at the wall and traced the bumps with my eyes, counting the white bricks, shadows and strokes of paint against the wall, ignoring the pain in my back, ignoring the man biopsying my kidney. My lungs burned and the room spun slightly as I reached over to take off the mask that covered most of my face.

"Put that back on," House said without moving from his position. I felt his hands on my back again as he placed a place of gauze and tape over the hole. I laid there for a moment and when he didn't move, didn't say a word, I turned slightly, bed sheets rumbling. I looked at him expectantly.

The door slide opened and I looked over, breaking eye contact with the six foot tall man. It was Wilson, my original doctor. He looked at me and winked. I smiled inwardly, it was funny how people treated the mute, like I was deaf as well, like it was pointless to talk to me, because I couldn't talk back. I looked at House from the corner of my eye. That was probably why the man stuck around as much as he did, I didn't speak, couldn't ask questions, could talk back, couldn't lie. Of course, I could sign, so then all that wasn't true. My back hurt and I shifted to sit and rubbed it absently. House looked down at my discomfort and stood up with the sample.

"Make sure she doesn't take that thing off," House said, pointing to the mask and stood with a grunt, shifting weight in a balance between keeping his right leg light and holding the medical equipment. Wilson nodded and sat down in House's absence as the door slid closed. The room was silent again.

"You want to watch tv?" the oncologist asked. Great, a babysitter. I looked over at the wall made of glass, passed Wilson's shoulder. Nodding, I couldn't do much else. Yes or no questions were fine after a period of adjustment. At first, people would take a step back, not sure what to say when they found that I was mute. "I'm sorry" never quite worked out. After a while, they would catch on. That yes or no stage was the worst. It held only two possibilities, limiting. House had been different, no "I'm sorry" stage, Yes or No stage, no "could you write that down" stage, there was just House. He asked a question, I signed and he understood. Simple.

Wilson turned on the TV, flipping through a couple of channels that looked boring until he got to an old episode of Project Runway. Yeah, that wasn't obvious. Wilson wasn't gay, he did it for my benefit. Right.

I smiled, which he took as approval and put the remote down. The room was quiet for a moment and I listened to the beeping monitors behind me. The IV stand shook as I moved and the liquid shushed around. The door opened and I looked up. House was back with more medical equipment.

He called it plasmapheresis, I called it torture.

I shook my head, tried to look sad, innocent, defiant, anything. But it wasn't enough. Wilson stood and I watched as House took his place.

"No," I signed and struggled against the EEG wires connected to my chest, the IV line conveniently taped down to my left hand and the various tubes that controlled my ins and outs, especially the outs. Kidney failure is an invitation to be cathed. An experience that I did not want to repeat, consequently my upper half struggled to a higher degree, thrashing that didn't last very long. House grabbed my chest with one hand and my left wrist with the other, causing the cannula in my hand to dig deeper into the muscle and veins on my hand. I screamed, a silent, ugly scream with open mouth and tearing eyes. Deaf people screamed, despite not being able to hear, but I wasn't deaf. I was mute. Vocal cords atrophied, existing only in the memory of a hopeful, absent mother. I cried, but I couldn't scream. Admitting defeat, I fell forward in an attempt to capture my hand and went limp. House's grip loosened until he realized that I would double over. Gently, he pushed me back into the rough cotton pillow. I sighed, even that was silent, as if some one had pressed a button and then lost the remote.

My eyes closed, I tried to focus on the silence, on anything but the snap of latex and the shifting of paper and cloth. My arms wrapped tightly against my chest, tensed with the feel of House's hand and pulled slightly to the opposite side. There was a beat of total silence, one that is filled with communication. Before I could open my eyes to find out what was being said, I felt two more hands on my chest and arms and since I didn't remember House having three hands, I could only assume that Wilson was still in the room. I fought for an imperceptible moment before I was restrained by soft restraints, cuffs pulling my wrists and forearms. I closed my eyes, in too much pain to fight, to scream, to grimace. I simply sank deeper into the sheets, into the pillow.

The smell of alcohol, of betadine, sweet, sour smell of medicine and pain. House, producing a bright green tunicate, wrapped it around my right arm, as Wilson, finishing with the restraints, wrapped a second tunicate around my left.

The heart monitor flickered my concern, no, my worry, no, my anxiety. Children under the age of 6 months often get their ears pierced. Not of their own free will of course, but never the less, they grow up thinking that they were born with pierced ears. What nobody tells you, and what the parents most certainly don't tell their child is that they are not pieced in the usual fashion. Two professional ear piercers, who on their sixteenth birthday, two days ago, decided to get their very first jobs, pierce your child's ears at the same time. They say it's to relieve the anxiety of the child. In reality, it's to relieve the anxiety of the parent.

This very thought ran through my mind as House and Wilson attack the veins on the arms at the very same moment. My eyelids tightened, pulling my head back and forth, I couldn't look away, couldn't find a side to get away from the pain. I'm not six months old and this clearly isn't relieving anything.


	3. Cuddy, My hero

I laid there in the silence, blood out, spin, spin, separate, separate, whoosh, whoosh, blood in. The television was turned off, the blinds on the plaster free wall were drawn and the night shift had just arrived. I could tell because the sun had gone down and they always left with the sun. Was it different in the winter? Sun left and so did they. Nice deal. Butterscotch nurse was back. Mint green scrubs… she always makes me hungry. But I'm not hungry, just bored… and my arms kind of hurt.

"Hey," night nurse says. I give a half hearted smile, trying to hide my surprise at not seeing her come in. She looks over at the machines and begins to speak. Oh, God, here it comes. She's not going to know. She's not going to realize it and I can't sign. Two lines in my arms and I can't communicate. I look up, realizing that she had said something and was waiting for a response. I try to raise my right arm, finding that I can't bend my elbow. A look of confusion has spread over her face. I can't speak you moron. I can't answer your question or make small talk. I'm mute, I'm MUTE!

The nurse looks over at the machines again, trying to figure out what I'm trying to do. Trying to raise my arms, but failing, my hands, but failing, my upper body but failing. She must think I'm having a seizer.

She writes down something in the chart, looking for past medical history as she goes. Am I a mental case?

"Are you all right?" the nurse asks and I give up, my hands flopping down onto the bed. This is useless. "I'll go get a doctor," she says and I don't even respond. What's the point?

The nurse opens the glass sliding door and comes face to face with another person. The angle is bad and I can't see who it is until she walks into the room.

"Oh thank God, Dr. Cuddy," the nurse says. "I think something is wrong with her." Cuddy steps in and immediately sees the frustration on my face.

"You all right?" Cuddy asks, taking a stethoscope off of her neck. I nodded an imperceptible nod. I was doing so well, it was quiet, but I was doing well. She pulls down the neck of the gown slightly and the metal is cold against my chest.

"She wasn't responding," the nurse says and Cuddy turns, taking the plugs out of her ears.

"What do you mean?" Cuddy asks.

"I asked her to give me a pain rating, but she just thrashed around," the nurse says. Green scrubs humming, mint green, yum. Cuddy smiled, I could tell because there was an unnatural silence.

"She's mute."

"Mute? As in she can't talk?"

"No, mute as in she has decided to become a mime." the night nurse smirked and looked back at me. I was not smiling. I closed my eyes, hearing the door close. There was silence for a long time and I figured I was alone. I squeezed my hands slightly, trying to relieve the numb, cold feeling in my fingers. Like insects running across my palms, tickling my life line. I wonder if that's a sign of something. Cutting my life line. My lips were dry and my toes were cold. I sighed, a silent sigh as I felt cold metal press against my chest. Jumping slightly, I opened my eyes to come face to chest with Cuddy. I looked up to find that her eyes were trained on mine. Why was she listening to my chest, my heart. The monitor beeped at a steady rate behind me. Beep, beep, beep, lubb dubb, lubb dubb.

"Hey," Cuddy said softly, a small sympathetic smile on her face. She made me want to cry. I looked into her eyes and I wanted to cry, weep, completely let go and dehydrate my body so completely that they would have to invent places to make lines for saline IVs. Drown in tears and let my body melt into a puddle of unusable flesh and tubes. Half way there anyway. But I didn't. Really, what would that accomplish?

"Where's doctor House?" I tried to sign, poorly, but she only withdrew her stethoscope and looked at me, confused. I sighed, frustrated. Cuddy looked at the chart and smiled.

"House?" she asked and I nodded, excited that I was understood. I nodded a little too violently and the lines in my arms shook slightly. I winced, which Cuddy must have taken as a smile, since she didn't ask any further. "He isn't here," Cuddy said, sitting down in the stool next to the bed. I watched her for a moment and looked away.

"Take the line out," I tried to sign and again she was confused. I couldn't blame her, even if she could understand ASL, my arms were too constrained to be understood. It was like duct taping a speaking person when the tape could be placed over the nose. The IVs in my arms could have been placed in my legs, but no one thinks of these things. Couldn't really blame them, I was fighting the process every step of the way. Cuddy reaches over for a plastic pink cup and pitcher. Pink, why would they make it pink? Was I having a baby girl? Pink was such a horrible color. Reminded me of death. Red blood and white flesh: pink.

Cuddy poured some water into the cup and offered it to me, a straw pointed in my direction. I looked at the offered cup for a moment and then turned away. I didn't want any water, I didn't want to be here, I didn't want pity and I didn't want Cuddy. She was nice, female, which was not a poor adjective. Female meant sweet, caring, 'aw it's a baby' attitude. Cuddy was female as far as all that went, she was trying any how. I heard a tap as she put the cup down, but I didn't turn. Hoping that she would leave, I just concentrated on the opposite wall.

"I could change that for you," she said after a long silence. I turned, questioning. "Get you at least one arm free," Cuddy said and I raised my eyebrows. What else was I going to do?

She took that as a 'yes, please do' and stood up from the stool. I watched her cross the room, the shadows following her as she walked to the cabinets to the right of the sliding door. Coming back with a tray of medical equipment, I watched as she snapped a pair of nirtile gloves onto her hands. Not as satisfying as latex, but a new day was dawning and so was the incidence of latex allergy in the general population. I winced despite myself and lack of elasticity. She took my right arm, finding that this was my dominate hand, and placed it on the stretched out material that had been covering the instruments.

Blue and white, wrinkled plastic cloth, stuffed with cotton and coated in wax. Who makes this stuff? Is there a five year old out there that says, 'I know, small blue wax coated sheets, that's what I want to do with my life'.

She stood up slightly, her heels clicking on the floor. Her white coat was new, clean and slightly reflective. That's odd. She turned on the overhead floresant light and I squinted, pulling back slightly at the sudden intrusion. Cuddy sat back down, the wheels on the stool rolling back slightly. She took my arm, which had fallen into my lap in my attempt at escaping the harsh light, no, not of day, just of the lamp. Well, maybe the harsh light of day, despite it being night.

In pulling my arm, she pulled herself closer to the bed, the wheels squeezing. Who oils the stools in the hospital? Is there some guy who walks around with a can of oil and just oils all the stools? I mean, there must be thousands of stools. And if so, what else does he oil? The doors? There are rollers on the sliding glass doors. They must need oil. He must have quit, I mean… Ouch. Before I knew it, Cuddy has stuck me in the posterior tibial vein. I tried to pull my leg back, knee towards the ceiling, but she had a firm grip as she attached the cannula in my leg to the tubing for the plasmaphoresis machine.

Blood out, spin, spin, whoosh, whoosh, blood in. I was no longer complete as I watched the thin line of humanity that ran out of my arm and into my opposite leg. What a thin line, thin… red… line. Circulatory. A system so old, that its found in nearly every living being. Used to be a hemocoel, an open circulatory system fit for lobsters. Yum. Now, it was just a line. A line for saline, a line for a calorie IV, and a line for my humanity. Thin, red line.

Cuddy pulled the blanket over my leg again and pushed back from the bed. The stool rolling over the floor and I pulled my right arm up, free from its constraints. Cuddy took her gloves off and placed them back on the nightstand table, where the open tray lay. I looked at her expectantly, but when she didn't look up, I looked over at the chart that she was writing in. Leaning in, the bed sheet rumbled beneath me and she gave me a sideways glance. I smiled. I wasn't happy. That wasn't it. I mean, how happy can you be with the person who just stuck a piece of plastic in your leg? But I smiled because she had freed me, and seemed to understand. She didn't know sign language, that much I could tell, but it was something.

"Give a scream if your leg starts hurting, ok?" she said and I raised my eyebrows. She smiled. "You know what I mean," Cuddy said and I nodded, looking away. "Get some sleep ok?" Cuddy said touching my freed arm, I looked down at her hand and looked back into her eyes. Female.

I took a deep breath and the monitor behind me beeped. I looked back at the monitor, the numbers quickly changing. My blood pressure, a steady 108 over 72, dropped and the monitor bleeped again. 99 over 69. I turned around, the room spinning. Too dizzy to keep my eyes open, I closed them. I could hear Cuddy take a step closer, but everything was a step behind. A slight shaking, I squeeze my eyes tighter, turning away from the source.

"Open your eyes," the voice said, but it seemed so far away. I opened my eyes, but it wasn't of my own will. 95 over 64. A pen light shone in my eyes and again, I tried to pull away, but it was no use. "I'm going to lower the bed."

86 over 61.


	4. Trac me

I heard the room first. Quiet, save the beeping behind me. Q-RS-T waves in beat. Contraction… release and contraction… release… I took a deep breath, finding a disturbance quickly. I swallowed, clearing my esophagus, good. Another breath and I was drowning again. I bent my right arm, clearing the sheets away from my hand as I did. Another instant and I knew what was wrong. Intubation. But you already knew that. Endotracheal tube placed into the trachea, referred to simply as orotracheal intubation. I guess there's more than one kind then. At the moment, however, I didn't care. The only endotracheal tube I cared about was the one that had been not so delicately shoved towards my lungs. I tried to breath against the noise that I now recognize at the ventilator next to me. Rage Against The Machine had never seemed so real. I exhaled as the machine compressed and inhaled, drowning in emptiness. Opening my eyes, I reached up to the plastic torture devise. Thick, rippled plastic met my fingers, as my wrist was met with something warm and calloused. I turned my eyes slightly, since my neck didn't move. Blue button down shirt, opened, revealing what I couldn't only tell you said 'ck and ro" since the shirt hide the rest. House, of course.

I'm sure that this would have been a problem for any one else, but I went through the whole communication barrier already. This was nothing. My mouth was simply a portal for food and other yummy treats. Mint green nurse, no, not her. My arms were conveniently free, as the plasaphorsis had ended in my absence of consciousness. But this whole breathing thing was a problem.

"Stop," House said, when I tried to pull against him. Considering my brain wasn't getting enough oxygen as it was, I didn't have much energy to resist. My arms relaxed and he dropped it back down to the rough sheets. "It's a medical thingy, just relax" he said, turning back to another person in the room. I couldn't see who it was, but some how knew it was Wilson. I think it was the smell of cleanly pressed clothing, that couldn't be House. I tried to breath against the machine, but after a short while, my lungs grew tried and I was glad that there was extra support. I closed my eyes, listening to their conversation until the door slide open and closed behind them.

Silence again. It wasn't really a bad thing, I guess. I mean silence can be good. I was tired and right now, silence was good. I felt my consciousness slip from between my fingers. Like jelly. A coherent thought gave rise to the image of red jello, thick and slippery, sliding through outreached hands, cold against the raised edges of fingertips. I smiled inwardly and I suppose it would have been outward too, if there hadn't been what House called 'a medically thingy' in my mouth.

My eyes opened again and it was night. A nurse stood next to me and I tried to shift my head, forgetting about the tube. She took a step to her left, towards the bed and looked at me. I struggled against the tube for a moment and she wrote down something in my chart.

"I'll get a doctor to take that out," she said. This wasn't mint green nurse. She was younger and smiled at me, as I continued to 'trigger the vent', as I glanced at the chart and read what she had written. Despite its discomfort, the endotracheal tube had brought one odd benefit. She didn't expect me to answer. I watched her leave, the door sliding behind her. I closed my eyes and tried to relax, but the spasming in my throat wasn't listening.

Short anatomy lesson for those under the age of ten. The body is made up of three kinds of muscles: smooth, skeletal, and cardiac. Since my heart seemed fine, I had no present concern with that. Smooth muscle, a muscle that lines all hollow organs: intestines, blood vessels, bladder, and most importantly, the trachea and bronchi tubes, now that was a concern.

These, unlike the muscles, that you use to kick a soccer ball, aren't under your control. In fact, what makes the trachea extra special is its supply of cilia, several thousand helpful little creatures, until, you know, you have a tube down your throat. Walk into a smoky room, you cough, because god knows you don't want that stuff in your lungs. Dusting an old book shelf, puff, dust in the air, cough, equally icky for the lungs. That's all well and good, but a hard, plastic piece of surgical tubing is much bigger than a particle of dust, and your involuntary smooth muscles and cilia are not amused. At least mine aren't.

Lesson over.

I opened my eyes at the sound of the door sliding and curtains closing. Cameron.


	5. Coming Home

CHAPTER

"Hey," she said, smiling, approaching the side of the bed. I looked at her, mud brown eyes. Pools, lightening in the middle, a yellow brown outlining her pupil. Odd.

I brought my arm up, from under the protective sheet, towards the plastic mold. Smooth plastic, like a pacifier, with a hollow sheath in the middle.

Cameron stepped out of my view and I closed my eyes, thinking that she had left. With a sudden and unexpected pull, I was free from my constraints, coughing up every last offended cilia into thick hospital air in front of me. She was quick with a glass of water, the pink cup that laughed at me. I turned, coughing silently at the opposite wall.

Finally, I could tell that she had given up, with an equally silence sigh, but didn't move. I just turned the rest of my body to face the other wall. I didn't want to talk, interact, or be pitied. Happy that I was free, I simply wanted to sleep.

"Your blood pressure fell because of the plasmaphoreisis. You should be fine now," Cameron said, but I didn't respond. A slight wheeze ran through my throat. Picking up on the subtle hiss, I felt the chosorphobia of an O2 mask, fully expecting the muzzle before she reached for the wall behind me. My O2 sats sat at a steady 92, not good, but oxygen depravation was becoming increasingly routine.

Night time. I hated night time. I don't know why. There was a glow about it, something that screamed silence, odd I know. I liked to think about how the day would come and eat the night. I mean really devour it, like a cookie, like a chocolate chip cookie. The ends would crumble into the earth and although day would be here, there was always a constant reminder of night, looming in the darkened corners. Waiting.

"Hey," Cameron said again. I blinked, not realizing that I hadn't reacted to something she had said. I looked at her confused, brow furrowed. Strange word in itself. "I asked you if you were in any pain." I looked at her for a long time. Did it really matter? My lungs burned from oxygen deprivation and my nose burned from the added oxygen. I really couldn't win could I? I shrugged. This wasn't the answer that she was looking for and so I held up one hand and a thumb, a 6 on the pain scale. Cameron nodded, and walked towards the door. The floor pharmacy was down the hall. The pharmacist had to be consulted when it came to the level 2 drugs, narcotics or anything fun like that.

I leaned back against the pillow, taking a deep breath of the artificial oxygen. Maybe a dream would help. But that dream world was short lived, I felt a burning in my hand. I opened my eyes, jerking back slightly, but it was no used, she had wrapped her hand around mine, anticipating my sudden, jerky movement.

"You can be discharged soon," Cameron said and I looked up at her. Mystery solved, treatment discharged and so was I. Insurance… not that I had any. I had come into the clinic and then kind of never left. But it still feels better… insurance.

"I don't have anywhere to go," I signed, but she didn't understand. Who could blame her.

"You are not," Wilson said to House, Wilson's office nearly kept.

"I am," House said, fiddling with a lump of playdoh on Wilson's desk.

"You take a patient home with you. You just can't," Wilson said, but House ignored him.

"She's not a patient once she's out of the hospital. She's just some kid." Wilson looked at House, and the room was silent for a long time. Wilson rubbed the back of his neck.

"Are you in love with his girl?" Wilson whispered.

"NO!" House said jumping up. "God, no… that's… that's… strange and just a little gross."

"So what are you going to do with her?"

"I thought we would start out with a game of twister and the play shoots and ladders if there's time before Barney. What do you think I'm going to do with her?"

"Yes, well while that sounds fun, where is she going to sleep? Do during the day? You know those types of things."

"My couch folds out…"

"You never told me…"

"You never asked. And she can come with me here. She still needs outpatient treatment. Do have a roommate anymore," House said, glaring at Wilson. "And its not like she makes much noise."

"But why… I mean…" Wilson was speechless.

"I'm lonely, is that what you want to hear?"


	6. Are we there yet?

I don't remember much of the night. It was dark, that much I remember and my hand burned and then there was nothing. Like a fading life, on the edge of humanity, that falls beneath the crest, setting into death.

I heard a click and a tug on my eyelid before I was blind. I struggled, but my body didn't move and all I could do was open my other eye. It was House. I tried to move my arms, but they were still heavy from sleep and they barely moved the cloth that covered me. The lines in my arms that had been used for the plasmaphoreisis had been gone for over a day and even the bandages that covered the small holes had been removed. Only a mark of black and blue remained. The O2 mask had been removed and I looked at House before trying to sit up.

"What happened?" I signed and House put the pen light back into his pocket, pushing my shoulder slightly, so that I could not sit.

"Nothing," House said and I looked into his blue eyes. Swimming pools, shallow pools of crystal water and I was suddenly thirst. I looked at the pink cup by the bedside, cursing it silently. "You're come home with me," House said writing something down, when I didn't respond, he looked into my confused expression. My eyebrows were knotted somewhere between shock, confusion, horror, and, dare I say it, excitement. It had to be better than all this hospital stuff anyway. For some reason I imagined House's apt to look like a hospital: clean, white, full of clocks and those huge paintings that never come with a name, but you know that it was from some desperate guy who was a little sad that his work would only be observed by the dying. I'm not sure what would be worse, to have your art work hanging in the chemo room or in the sitting room of a mortuary. Chemo room must be worse, to have your work associated with pain has to be worse than that that is associated with death.

"Did you hear what I said?" House asked, a look of mild concern crossed his face. I shook my head slowly and House looked behind him and then at the monitor behind me. He must think I'm crazy.

"Come on," House said and I got out of bed.

"Dr. House, Dr. Cuddy wants to see you in her office," a nurse said from the doorway. House sighed and then looked at me. I found the bag of clothing that had been stripped from me when I had unceremoniously entered the hospital.

I still had an IV in my left hand and I held it out without a word. Well of course without a word. House gestured for me to sit and he pulled a pair of gloves out of a box in the corner, sitting down on the stool that no one oils. It squeaked slightly and I looked down at the wheels.

"You're one strange kid," House said pulling the strips of tape off and the needle out. I flinched slightly, instantly correcting my face into a neutral stare when House looked up at me.

"I'm 16," I signed, once my hand was free.

"Then I remarked stands." I got off of the bed, wincing when my hand bent backwards, disturbing the fresh wound.

"You can't take a patient home with you," Cuddy said, closing a file that sat in front of her. I looked around the room. Why would anyone need a couch in their office, did she sleep here a lot? Is that what I want, a doctor who sleeps on the job? Of course, she would be well rested, having a doctor that sleeps in her office has to be better than one that has been up for 48 hours.

"Hey," House said, waving a hand in front of my face. I looked at him. He turned towards Cuddy, "She does this a lot…" I looked at House with disgust and then wandered off towards the book shelf.

"Why would you want to take her home?" Cuddy said, eyeing House suspiciously. "This isn't like you."

House rolled his eyes. "She's everything I could want in a patient. Never talks," House said counting on his fingers, his cane hanging on his wrist. "She seems oddly angry all the time," House said looking at me. I glared at him and turned around. "And she doesn't speak, or did I mention that one already?"

"You just can't…"

"I though you wanted me to show compassion," House said loudly and even I jumped. I walked back to stand next to House. He and Cuddy were just staring at each other. I looked up at House and then at Cuddy, before slamming my fist into the corner of Cuddy's desk. This was of course the hand that had had the IV in it, which I had conveniently forgotten until my hand struck the table top. With what would have been a sharp cry of pain if I hadn't been mute, I cradled my hand and turned away from the pair. They were looking at me when I turned around. They both had blue eyes. How can a recessive trait really be so dominant? His eyes were lighter though, hers seemed angrier.

"Do you want this?" Cuddy asked me and I looked at my feet, absently rubbing my left hand. I looked at the carpet for a long time, memorizing the patterns until I finally look up again. I nodded faintly at first, and then with more force. Cuddy, obviously not expecting this, sighed.

"Fine." House tapped his cane on the floor three times in a kind of victory dance. It only reminded me of Dorothy's heels clicking on the floor. Of course, it was true. There is no place like home.


End file.
